NEW ORLEANS (AP) — One of the negotiators of the Pacific Rim trade agreement said Tuesday that since the deal was reached in October, about 13 other countries have requested information about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and some have wanted to join it.
"I said it was way too late to be part of it," Robert Holleyman told port and business representatives Tuesday at a luncheon roundtable in New Orleans, the nation's eighth-largest export market. But he said the interest shows there's a great chance to extend standards that it sets, including environmental protection and bans on child and forced labor.
President Barack Obama has said securing Congress' approval of the pact is a top priority of his final year in office.
Holleyman said the deal would eliminate more than 18,000 taxes on U.S. goods, including Japan's 40 percent tariff on rice, a crop worth $656 million to the state in 2014.
About $17.5 billion worth of goods — 27 percent of all Louisiana exports — went through the state last year to the 11 other countries that have signed the agreement, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said. He said those exports included $2.8 billion to Japan and $201 million to Vietnam.
He urged participants to encourage members of Congress to support the agreement.
"The City of New Orleans has always considered itself to be an international city and a very important part of the international framework. I believe the TPP is going to move us farther in that direction," he said.
Responses were positive. Kristy App, from trade and customs broker J.W. Allen & Co., said she and others worried that the treaty would be "punted to another administration."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the treaty doesn't have the votes to pass at present, and Obama should wait to send it to Congress until after the elections.
Landrieu told App, "The president and leadership of the House and Senate are on the same page. You would think the Congress could get this done before the end of the year."
She said, "Recently, Canada and China announced they were working on an agreement on their own. … If we don't act, it takes away a little of our power to establish ourselves in that region."
Canada is among the signatories to the pact, but China is not.
Representatives of a Mississippi River basin business group, a barge company and the Port of New Orleans said they support the trade agreement, but cannot reap full benefits without help clearing the channels through which ships and barges reach port.
Silt in the Mississippi River's shipping channel means that ships cannot extend lower than 43 feet into the water instead of the 47-foot draft available when the channel is clear, said Sean Duffy of the Big River Coalition business lobby.
He said each foot of draft averages out to $1 million worth of cargo. "Right now, ships are … $4 million short" both arriving at and leaving the Port of New Orleans, he said.
Presidential candidates including Democrat Hilary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump have spoken against the deal. Trade unions are against it. But two prominent business groups have endorsed it.
– by AP Reporter Janet McConnaughey
